by John Dowd
For the last couple weekends, Cultivating Connections Montana has held a special Halloween-themed event for the youth of the community. According to Cultivating Connections Montana staff, the event was for youth, by youth, and really a window into what they are all about.
Cultivating Connections Montana is a nonprofit housed at the Homestead Organics Farm, just outside of Hamilton. The farm has been there for about 25 years. The nonprofit has been in operation for about nine years. According to Laura Garber, co-owner of the farm as well as the food and farm director of Cultivating Connections, “We went from a for-profit to a community-profit organization.” For her, the entire goal of the organization is to help the local community benefit. Their events, business structure and mission is all about growing things, and not just food.
The organization’s motto is “Building community through food,” and according to Garber, a huge part of what they do involves youth. The organization has a youth farm internship program where young people are paid to participate. Those youth did a lot of the design of this Halloween event, and manned several of the stations, including chick holding, vegetable sculptures, a hay maze, scarecrow making and more. The youth participants range in age from 14 to 19 years old. Some are special needs, and some are looking at agriculture as a potential career path.
Five-year-old Everleigh Schlimgen helps build a scarecrow with Cultivating Connections Montana Office Administrator Jennifer Johnson. Photo by John Dowd.
This event was really youth helping youth. One thing Garber said she was proud of was how the interns built the maze, which has seen a lot of use, even outside of the main Halloween event, the last couple weeks. According to her, “They did it knowing a lot of people were going to enjoy it.” For them, that butterfly effect is integral to what they teach.
This event was part of Cultivating Connections Montana’s “Giveback” initiative, where the interns work to grow food, prepare it, package it and give it back to the community. A big part of that initiative is the number of events, like this last weekend. During the event, youth interns and adult organizations staff and volunteers dressed up in Halloween costumes and manned several stations. Garber dressed up as an astronaut and helped at the wood-fired pizza station. Garber said it was just great to be outside, even though there was a little drizzle last Saturday.
Havanah Davis, a youth intern with Cultivating Connections Montana, holds a baby chick and mans the booth where young children can interact with baby birds. Photo by John Dowd.
The event went from 1:30 to 5 p.m. and families with young children were encouraged to attend, and Garber said the goal of this event has been to reach this demographic. “How can we engage people at every level?” Garber said this was their discussion before creating many of their events.
Another big part of Cultivating Connections Montana is the farm stand at Homestead Organics Farm.
Stacey Fetterman, the farm stand manager and internship program assistant, said the farm stand is a self-serve store, on the honor system. It is an all local store that carries produce and products produced mostly from the local area, and all with connections to Montana. “We strive to support Montana made,” said Fetterman.
Everything the store makes goes back into the nonprofit, most of which goes to help pay the youth interns. Fetterman said the organization strives to donate about 75% of their products to the community, through other initiatives like Haven House Food Bank, veteran organizations and more. 25% is sold at the farm stand. They also carry other local organizations’ foods and products.
Visitors take part in the vegetable sculptures portion of the event. Photo by John Dowd.
The interns work the farm and help run the events put on by Cultivating Connections Montana. They also learn to grow their own food and produce products and recipes for food they produce. The youth program has two sessions; one in the fall, and one in the spring. During these sessions, the organization plans and hosts these events.
When asked why she’s involved with this, Fetterman said, “The mission statement for the organization is something like, ‘Change your food, change your life,’ and I really believe that. I really believe in our youth and that we need to spend time with them.”
For more information on Cultivating Connections Montana, interested parties can find their website at cultivatingconnectionsmt.org.